Sussex Wine Tour - Lets go to the vineyards
This English Wine Tasting Tour was definitely special as it was our inaugural Sussex Vineyard Tour that showcased Bolney Estate Vineyard and Bluebell Estate Vineyard. Both are outstanding and award-winning vineyards nestled in the heart of Sussex!
While we initially were concerned about having a wine tour during the bank holiday due to people having other plans, and while the thought of fighting the M25 was daunting, we pressed through and had a really good group of guests make bookings. Unexpectedly this tour was the most international tour yet with people from America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland and England! None of our guests had ever been to an English Vineyard and probably about 75% had never tried an English wine.
Our first vineyard stop was Bolney Estate Vineyard for a tour and tasting in the morning. We had a wonderful tour guide, Allen, who showed us around estate and through the vineyard. He was extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of things, including wine, but was able to field some tricky questions from our guests. After tasting several wines, our time was up and we ventured back onto our coach and went to the Bolney Stage for a gastro pub lunch. The pub lunch received several thumbs-up for such excellent food from our crew. The burger and fish-n-chips seemed to be the most popular choices!
After lunch we loaded back up on the coach and headed to Bluebell Vineyards for some very fine bubbly! Bluebells has some excellent sparkling wine – it’s actually the only type of wine they produce at their vineyard but have plans next year to begin producing a couple of still wines. The tasting at Bluebells Vineyard was much different than most as they allowed us to taste the same wine over different vintages (years). Oh how the wine develops with time! Delicious.
After a full day of wine tasting and fine English faire we returned our guests safe and sound to London Bridge. All had a great time and are looking book our Kent tour in the near future!
